Virtual Social Event

City of Heroes may be an action fighting game but just about every aspect of the game is designed for socialization and team-based objectives. When attempting "missions" one must first gather a group of willing volunteers to help you with your goal. Teams can have up to 8 people on them. A strong team will have varying types of characters (some for directing enemy attacks, some to heal, and others to pick off the weaker foes). Teaming up with others for missions is the most basic form of socialization in the game. If you start a team you have a get a mission and then start searching for other players who want to help you in the chat box provided on the screen. If someone asks to help, you invite them to the team and they join. If you have a partial team and are waiting for more, the teammates usually meet at the start of the mission and socialize. They talk about anything that comes to topic, like they are just hanging out. Once the mission starts, each member must communicate with the others to help win battles and defeat enemies. A typical battle conversion involves letting others know if you are being "held" by an enemy's power and need freeing or warning others of battle plans like "pulling" an enemy from a group (blasting just one enemy from a large distance in order to just get him to run over to the group so that the group doesn't have to fight all the enemies at once).

A more pure form of socialization in the game are areas where characters like to congregate for socialization and asking questions about the game. Each side of the game (Heroes and Villains) has multiple areas to navigate within the world itself. Areas are connected by virtual trains or gates to adjacent areas. Each area usually has a normal hang out spot where characters go to socialize but there is one special area called Pocket D that characters can go that connects both worlds. In Pocket D, Heroes and Villains alike can socialize with each other. Upon entering this area, each character is turned neutral and therefore is unable to be targeted for attack, so fighting is never an issue. In Pocket D, there is a floating DJ in the middle that plays basic game soundtrack music, there's a PvP area where characters can setup private matches against other characters to determine who's better, and when holidays occur in the real world, there is usually a special event setup in the virtual world to coincide with it. These event areas are usually attached to Pocket D so both Heroes and Villains can access it. The biggest events coincide with Winter Holidays, Halloween, and Valentine's Day.

Pocket D is also the locations for the broadcasting of the Internet radio station "The Cape". The Cape is a player run internet radio station (playable through iTunes or the like) that several real people operate as their virtual world counterparts. Whenever one of these DJs is broadcasting, they log into their character and hang out in Pocket D while playing their music online. Many other characters join the DJ in Pocket D for socialization and i attended one of these small events as one of the real world DJs is a real world friend of mine. I mostly danced (there are in-game emotes that allow your character to dance) and talked with other attendees. Most of the socialization i "overheard" was playful flirting and discussion of upcoming game updates and add-ons. This particular meeting of the players had about 8 people in attendance, not the biggest i've seen, but it was still fun.